Not sure how disarming ranged weapons with parry was even a viable thing, and parrying could easily deflect a swing attack, even a rocket propelled hammer, that is the point of parrying, you strike the weapon away from the direction you dodge. It is basic melee combat defense, how do people not know this?

They fit into the world as you see it. It makes sense to you.

Ive ran a decent melee build.
Put points into agility, luck and strength. Everything else you can build up later, investing in idiot savant equates to 9 points in intelligence on the xp ratio so your levelling isnt hindered. Agility has blitz which allows you to VATS melee real easy increasing your reach. Theres ones that help you run faster/with less damage aswell.

Everything else should be considered secondary till you can effectively just walk up to an enemy, soak the damage and keep it minimal then hit him fast/hard enough to kill him before he can react much. Alot of raiders will try hitting you or running away upclose which gives you decent time to hit. Vats helps alot, especially criticals

Learning weakness is key; deathclaws have weaker bellys, supermutants are cluts with guns so hit their arms, go for ghouls legs, head for humans..

Mind you, i also picked up big guns considering its already in strength. You'd be an idiot to walk up to a deathclaw with nothing but t51 power armour and a serrated chinease sword

You'll be running to sanctuary a decent amount of times for water to begin with but it picks up when you're level 15.

From what others are saying only you and the other guy are the only ones that for some reason doesnt think it makes sense.

There are very minimal ways to go around melee combat, and to completely disregard one of the most popular ones because it "doesnt fit" in a few peoples minds is insane.

Shields simply fit into a world, regardless of its origins, Fallout is about a future-type irradiated world, sure the niche for weaponry is a sort of futuristic laser weapons, but projectile weapons, including scrapped together pistols, rifles, revolvers, and sniper rifles, not to mention a freakin stick with attachable saw blades or spikes. The pure irony of thinking shields do not fit into this world is borderline stupidity, it is almost unfathomable to argue they dont fit into the FO world cause you think shields are for fantasy games only.

Wow, fancy that- most people on the thread "Where are the shields" want shields...

Nope, they don't fit. GAMEPLAY-wise. Too Skyrim.

You have formed this entire theory, and perceived consensus based on a sample size in the teens- maybe twenty. That is called confirmation bias- the human tendency to see what they want to see.

There is no sea of people out there who want sword and board in FO4. Skyfall? Fallrim? I don't know. It's corny, dude.

Also- tactical shields in the modern world are not used to deflect bullets- they're used to deflect rocks, bats, kicks, etc. You can't block a bullet with a riot shield.

Stupidity is sword and board in Fallout.

Why don't we add magic too, then? What? it can be space magic like Mass Effect.... ugh.

Wow, maybe learn something about modern shields then speak please.

Riot shields deflect those things for riot situations.

Tactical shields are used by breaching teams so the first guy through doesnt get taken out immediately, and so the people behind him have something to stand behind that isnt flesh and blood.

Axes, swords, warhammers, and any other manner of melee battle weapon, that do exist in the game, could be considered too fantasy. If you are going to argue that shields are then too fantasy, then get the [censored] out. Your stupidity is astounding and it doesnt belong here.

Just because you invented a [censored] term like sword and board, doesnt mean it immediately is a fantasy fighting style. Then immediately arguing that magic should then be added is beyond stupid, I feel like if I jumped off your ego, and landed on your IQ, I would die instantly on impact.

Not to mention, as I have explained before, which I assume you did not read, games that employ firearms only, also employ the use of tactical shields, Battlefield 4, CoD: whatever number its at now, and Rainbow Six Siege, all have the option to use tactical shields.

These shields, which could be used with a melee weapon yes, can ALSO be used, and are built to be used, with a side arm. Why stop there, we scrapped together armor with shopping cards and metal scraps, power armor doing the same thing, which is basically full plate armor with a power source.

Those things aren't too fantasy, but we pump the brakes at shields, easily the most tactically beneficial item in existence because Skyrim also employs the use of them, and Bethesda can only use them in one game, or by golly you have to add magic with them.

Ok shield haven't been in fallout games before so I don't see the need for them to priority balancing mechanics around that then.

Even though it's silly in the real world two pistols with one in each hand was an option in fallout 1 and fallout 2 so if they brought something from skyrim it would be the option for dual wield with pistols. Yes, I know it's unrealistic but so is living forever as a melted dude due to radiation and that is also part of the fallout universe.

Shields hadn't been in a fallout game before so while maybe they'd be nice in a DLC someday I don't see the big deal for something fallout never had not being in fallout.

Holy gannule, dude- you need to chill. Tactical shields for breaching, yada yada... it doesn't matter one bit. You gettin' heated, son!

It's just not a good idea. Cars existed too, why don't we get cars? A little GTA in the mix! No. Sword and board is silly. Sorry. Nothing personal, as we do not know each other. Good luck tilting at your windmills, Baton and tactical shield in hand.

Good day sir.

THAT, is a great idea. You lost me until that. We do wear the Pip Boy on our left arm though. Holding a shield might be hard to do.

You guys settle down now, your both right so no need to be asses about it.

Niro is right that shields do make sense in this setting as anyone that has ever played SWAT or RB6 can attest.

However Llama is also right in that it doesn't fit in with Fallout because Bethesda also makes TES and the herp der der community dubbed FO3 "Oblivion with guns" so it's off the table to eliminate any sort of possibility of "FO4 is Skyrim with guns" nonsese from the peanut gallery.

shields wouldnt be too far of a stretch really.. i mean we can already block with our melee weapon so why not have shields.. enemies block attacks all the time with puny knives ect.. that makes less sense than using a shield to block..

How does it not matter? It is the basis of your argument that shields are too fantasy, and you are wrong. Repeatedly bringing nothing to the table but, hey its too fantasy, or hey, if they add shields, might as well add magic. The counterpoints I make are based in fact. So yes, go, please.

Another solid point, how does one parry, or block a dog bite, a flailing ghoul, or a sledgehammer, with a switchblade? All the more reason to break the monotony of poor FO idealism, and bring something else to the table. Whiners calling the game Oblivion with guns, or Skyrim with guns, are just far too stupid to matter. Those are the kind of people who argue making the gun system feel like firing a gun thinks it makes the game too much like CoD.

a shield and a charge is EXACTLY what is needed for a melee build

speaking of melee though.. does anyone else feel blitz needs an animation? i mean im ok with teleporting.. but there should at least be some kinda animation.. like smoke or something.. it just seems.. odd how you just instantly appear next to an enemy.

I assumed it did that, never went that far on melee, gave up and just went tanky firearms. I also dislike not seeing my equipped weapons. I digress, that is not the point of this post, there needs to be more flavor to melee combat, shields would help diversify it, while guns have tons of different types and styles. Full sneak and ninja sniper, fire from cover and throw grenades, sit in PA and shotgun anything that looks funky.

There are only two ways to melee, charge in full tilt, and if you are lucky make it through the hail of gunfire, hit the enemy until it dies. Otherwise it is, sneak up and hope to not get spotted by the enemy, sneak attack, and if the survive, flail until they die. Otherwise you just switch to a gun and just shoot them, because of the futility of trying to melee.

Shields have never been seen in any of the Fallout games or their dlc.

Lamenting the absence of something that was never there is lot like wondering why we don't have motorcycles to ride in the wasteland.

We've also never seen weapons you could build from scratch and have like 40 possible mods for either. Lets make sure THAT never happens.....

So what your saying is we should expect the same stale gameplay over and over again? Or to optimize a stale part of the game that has not changed in two games? If you are okay with that, then fine, but bringing new things into the game and expanding is sort of the point of making new games, at least I would hope so.

Bethesda optimized melee combat in Skyrim, I would have assumed they would take the hint in the Fallout series and make some adjustments, but instead they went from having good melee combat, to having crap combat that relies almost entirely on stealth or VATS. Am I the only one that barely uses the Fallout aimbot?

First of all melee in skyrim is very poorly done. I had to use multiple combat mods to make it enjoyable so lets not call the optimized then it became fun.

Second of all I think he means why complain about features missing that were never even in the game instead of saying it's a feature you'd like added especially when there are actual things the series has had (like my two pistols example) that you can't do). (80% sure I used two pistols in fallout 1 at least. even though it was goofy it fit the goofy world)

I've never been a mele player in fallout (other than the game breaking stealth suit and sword combo of FO3 for fun) but considering how well done the two handed flexibility of Skyrim was, I was half expecting this. Hell, I half imagined perks that let you dual weild pistols (not that I'd be a fan).

Though for shields to work they would need to degrade/break easily enough to balance them (maybe each sheild has a certain damage threshold that once hit forces it to be dropped). Allow players/NPCs some cover to rush in for mele, but not sustain heavy fire. Slow you down. A raider rushing you with a sheild and bat might encourage you to change tactics.

Shields would be reasonable. In fact many times I expected some kind of shields. Like I imagine seeing shields made of scraps, particularly among raiders and super mutants, I could easily see them using trash can lids, car doors, or even real shields in the game.

Though the fact that we do wear our pip-Boy on our left arm could be very problematic!

That being said, Shields would be a welcome addition to the fallout universe. Especially with this crafting system, you could add "vision" mods to let you build slits to see through your shield, or adding spikes to do damage back to MELEE opponents.

And it won't be a be all end all situation. You could still take damage around your shield and perhaps they could break the shield too.

I would really love to see them add Shelds, but we probably won't see to until Fallout 5.

Now my first playthrough as been my normal set up and snipe gameplay style. But I'm wondering. I've seen some perks using VATS to close the distance for melee. Maybe that's how you avoid taking the big hit while closing? Using VATS? I'm not sure. I'll have to do a second playthrough and work on being a ninja melee type maybe. There are so few swords in this game. And yeah, swords vs power armor is probably going to svck.

It was better than Oblivion, the point I am making is they improved on it. The only thing they improved on in this game was the gun play, and if that is all they are going to improve then I ask again, why even have melee if you refuse to improve it? The melee combat in Skyrim was far and beyond what we have here, and this is a newer game, you cannot just haphazardly shoehorn an aspect of the game just because you have other options it is unabashed laziness.

VATS should be a choice, not a forced aspect of the game, in the previous 2 FO games, I never used it, now it feels like if I dont, I am missing out on major combat advancements.

As far as the pip boy being on our left arm, I see no issue in having a strap system that mounts it to the pip boy itself, I mean you dont even see your equipped weapon on your body, would it be much of a stretch to have the shield dissapear when you look at your pip boy? Or hell, even have a small screen on the back of the shield where that nifty new pip plug attaches to.